


against the dying of the light

by sospes



Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Kink Meme, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:05:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sospes/pseuds/sospes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"They come in the night with knives and torches." And when they find Fili again, he's not the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	against the dying of the light

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on _The Hobbit_ kink meme on LJ.

They come in the night with knives and torches, and before Kili knows what’s happening Bofur is shaking him awake and Thorin is roaring, “ _Run!_ ” They run, leaping astride the ponies and goading them forward—not that they need much encouragement, not with the smell of orc and warg in their nostrils—and they flee through the trees, twigs snapping in Kili’s eyes and brambles scratching him across the face. Bilbo thunders beside him, the hobbit’s eyes wild with terror, and Bombur’s face is oddly grim as he huddles forward over his pony’s neck. 

How they escape Kili doesn’t quite know, but the moment they come to a shuddering halt in a silent, empty glade he turns around and realises that Fili’s not there. 

“Fili?” he says, sliding inelegantly off his pony, and then louder, “Fili!” – because he’s not here, his pony is here but he’s not, and Kili’s never felt desperation quite like this. “ _Fili_ ,” he all-but roars, and then Thorin is at his side, slapping a hand across his mouth and hissing something about orcs and still out there, but Kili doesn’t care. “Where is he?” he demands, quiet but terrified. “Where is he?”

He doesn’t miss the glance Thorin shares with Gandalf, the pain in his uncle’s eyes. “We’ll get him back,” he says, and grips a handful of Kili’s hair. “ _Kili_. I swear, we’ll find him.” And all Kili can think is _i need him_ and _i can’t do this without him_ , because he remembers dozing off mere hours ago with his brother in his arms and how could he leave him behind? He feels sick, and before he knows what’s happening he’s emptying his stomach into the bushes, because he’s not stupid, and he would do anything to get his brother back but that doesn’t mean that they will. 

In the morning, they can’t find him. With the sun breaking the forest looks different, the paths twist in different directions and no matter how hard they try, they can’t find their camp, can’t find the orcs’ trail, can’t find Fili. Frustration and anger blaze in Thorin’s eyes, and he roars into the empty air. Kili is just numb. 

When darkness falls again, Ori gently takes him by the hand and sits him down beside the fire. He falls asleep in the warmth and dreams of braiding his brother’s hair. 

They search for four days. They find nothing. They move on. 

Kili doesn’t speak for a long time. He eats what he’s handed, goes where he’s told, does what he’s asked. When Bilbo gets himself hauled off his feet by a trio of trolls, he hurls himself into the fray with hardly a care if he comes out again – and he feels nothing when he does. Treasure gleams in Thorin’s hands and Bofur and Gloin come out of the trolls’ hole with dirt on their hands, but he just sits, and waits. 

Balin touches his shoulder, his hand warm and heavy, and says nothing. 

And then another wizard stumbles into their midst, the ponies bolt in panic, and they’re running, running, wargs on their tail and orcs howling for their blood – and all Kili wants to do is stand and fight. He wants to kill them, to take their lives like they took his brother from him, but Thorin has him by the wrist and he drags him onward, onward. 

When they’re cornered, trapped with their backs to hard rock and nothing but death around them, Kili puts an arrow through a warg’s throat and bites his lip so hard his mouth fills with blood. He hears Gandalf calling on them to run, to escape, but he ignores them, lurches forward, bow in hand but without any arrows – but then Dwalin lifts him off his feet and drags him backwards and he can do nothing but scream until Thorin slams his fist into his face and there’s nothing but darkness. 

Kili comes to on a soft bed under leafy shade. It’s quiet, even though he can hear the familiar rumble of Bombur’s laugh somewhere in the distance, and when he opens his eyes his face aches. For a moment he just lies there, staring up at the leaves and not thinking about the tattered gap in his heart his brother used to fill. 

“You’re awake,” Thorin says quietly, and Kili turns instinctively towards his uncle’s voice. “You were crazed,” Thorin continues, and there’s something Kili can’t quite understand in his eyes. “Uncontrollable.”

Kili doesn’t respond to the unasked question. He says, “Where are we?”

Thorin pauses, and says with curled lip, “Rivendell. Gandalf lured us to the elves. He claims they can read the map, but—” And he breaks off suddenly, forehead furrowed, and something in his anger softens. “At least they did some good.” 

He’s looking past Kili, now, his expression almost gentle, and Kili follows his gaze – and for the first time he notices that they’re not alone, and that while the occupant of the other bed might be curled on his side and facing away from them, away from light and conversation and the world, his hair still gleams in the sunlight the way it always did. Kili surges up, but Thorin holds him firmly down. “Quiet,” he commands, and he’s uncle and king and friend all at once. “The elves say they found him a week ago, abandoned in the wild, wounded and delirious. He hasn’t spoken since they brought him here.” Thorin pauses, and says slowly, “They saved his life.” 

Kili pulls free from Thorin’s restraining hand and goes to his brother, because it’s only now that the numbness might be starting to lift. His fingers tremble as he smoothes Fili’s hair, but this is real and it isn’t a dream, and his knees buckle under him. He sits heavily on the side of Fili’s bed, and he wants nothing more than to hold him tight and never let him go. 

After a while, Thorin tucks a blanket around Kili’s shoulders, leaves him to his vigil, and it’s only when his uncle is out of the door and gone that Kili lets out the breath that he’s been holding for weeks. His hands shake (but that’s okay), and he runs his fingertips across Fili’s skin, across the bruises and weals and bites and half-healed gashes, across the white bandage woven around his shoulder. He whispers his brother’s name almost without realising what he’s doing, and the heat from Fili’s body is like sunlight on his face. 

When Fili wakes, the sun has set and stars gleam in the night sky. Kili’s hand is still wide and warm on his brother’s back, and the moment Fili’s breathing flutters from slow and steady to fast and awake he shrinks forward, shrinks away from Kili’s touch – and Kili notices, of course he does. He’s closely attuned to his brother’s presence at the best of times: now, with him absent for so long, he can’t look away. 

“Fili,” he says softly, joyously, “it’s me.” 

And Fili freezes, still curled away from his brother, and he looks over his shoulder, dark and wary. “Kili?” he asks, voice hoarse through misuse and screaming. “ _Kili_.” And then he’s moving, scrabbling for Kili’s hands, dragging him closer, closer, until they’re wrapped up in each other as they should always be and Fili’s hands are almost painfully tight in Kili’s hair and he’s kissing him furiously, all teeth and tongue, and it’s everything Kili thought he’d never have again. He feels tears on his cheeks, and he can’t tell if they’re his or his brother’s. 

They sit, forehead to forehead, so woven together no one could tear them apart. Neither of them thinks about propriety, about right or wrong, and when Fili says, “I dreamed of you,” so quiet it could almost be dismissed as nothing, Kili feels his heart break. 

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, and pulls Fili closer, skin to skin. “How did you escape, brother? We thought you were lost. I thought—” He can’t finish, because the memory of the emptiness in his heart makes his head spin. 

Fili’s hands are fisted in his hair. He’s silent for a long moment, and then he says haltingly, “Thorin cannot know.” 

And just like that, joy fades from Kili’s heart. “Know what?” he asks, his body suddenly knotted and tight. “Fili,” he says, and cups his brother’s cheek, “what happened?” 

There’s something unreadable in Fili’s eyes. “Promise me he’ll never know,” he says. “Swear to me.” 

“I swear,” Kili answers. His hands are shaking again. 

“The pale orc,” Fili says, quiet as the grave. “Azog. He took me, tortured me. Knives and whips. And his fists, his feet. He threw me in a cell under the ground. No food for days, no water.” And Fili is shaking, now, his hands sliding from Kili’s hair to his shoulders, touch clammy. His gaze is absent, and his hand flickers to the bandage wound around his shoulder, gentle and delicate. “And he used me,” Fili continues, detachedly calm, “for his own pleasure. Repeatedly.” 

That’s when Kili feels his heart judder to a stop. “What?” he breathes. 

Fili shuts his eyes, teeth gritted. “Don’t make me say it again,” he grinds out. “Please.” 

Kili doesn’t think he’s felt this kind of anger in his life before. He fumbles for his brother’s hand, crushes Fili’s fingers in his grasp. “Brother,” he says, and feels his body tremble. 

And Fili’s eyes are open, bright and broken and so very angry. “Thorin cannot know,” he says again, tight and hard. “He was going to kill me until he found out who I am. He did this to hurt Thorin. So he would see his line defiled and shamed.” His lips are twisted. “I didn’t escape, brother. He turned me lose at the elves’ border to wander until I was found or I died.” And his hands tighten on Kili’s shoulder, gripping so hard it’s almost painful – and he spits out, “I will not let him win. Thorin cannot know. No one can know. I was taken and beaten, and I escaped. That’s all.” 

“I will find him,” Kili hisses, spits, with the anger of a dragon foaming in his gut, “and I will rip his head from his shoulders and eat his heart.” 

Fili’s shoulders are shaking, but there’s nothing Kili can do to stop it. 

They don’t linger long in Rivendell. Thorin hates the place, it’s clear to see, and the moment Fili is deemed strong enough to walk, his story of a few bruises and a miraculous escape accepted without question, they move on. The others welcome him back with joy and disbelief: Kili is the only one to notice the way his brother stiffens at every pat on the shoulder, every friendly jostle. Fili hoists his pack high, slings his sword across his back, and Kili walks at his side, silent and ever ready. 

Fili doesn’t sleep much, and when he does, Kili watches his face twist through pain and fear and anger – and when he tries to comfort him, to take him in his arms and reassure him with his touch, his brother goes deadly still, his heart thumping hard enough to make the ground shake. His sleeping mind can’t tell the difference between his brother and his torturer, and that makes Kili’s stomach twist: he sits close by, never touching, whispering desperate words of comfort and assurance and love in the dark that he’d never say in the light of day. 

Thorin doesn’t know. Thorin cannot know, and they spend so much time running from stone giants and goblin kings that he has little chance to ask. 

When they are hauled before the goblin king with his quivering jowls and rippling belly, Kili sees his brother’s face go pale as ash and it’s all he can do to not rip his way through the beasts to get to his side. Fili’s lips form words, small and silent, and Kili doesn’t know what he’s saying but he understands the look in his eyes well enough. He calls his brother’s name, but the goblins are too loud. 

When they run, Kili catches his brother’s wrist and doesn’t let go – and when the pale orc comes, arrogant and brazen on his snow white warg, Fili _roars_ , a wordless howl of grief and rage that trembles through the treetops. Azog looks up towards the sound, and his smile is a dead man’s sneer. Kili has to pin his brother to the treetrunk to stop him hurling himself at the monster he hates, and the wildness in Fili’s eyes is something he never wants to see again. “Fili,” he says, loud as he dare, “ _no_. Look at me, not at him. Don’t let him win.” 

Fili snarls, animalistic and broken, and then he’s fumbling with the buttons of his shirt, pulling it aside to bare the shoulder that was once swathed in white bandages – and Kili can’t breathe for a second, because there are runes etched into his brother’s skin with the point of knife, scarred and gleaming white, and they say _slave_. “This is what he did to me,” Fili spits over the howl of wargs and the gloating of orcs, grabbing at Kili’s shoulders, his hair, his clothes. “This is what he _made me_.” 

And Kili grabs his collar, shakes him and shakes the tree they’ve fled to, and says, “ _No_. I won’t let him. I will not _lose you_.” 

Fili is wild, mad, and he kisses Kili, there in front of everyone, flames licking up the trees and death hanging over them – and Kili doesn’t remember much after that. They fought, yes, bolting to Thorin’s defence in Bilbo’s footsteps, and then the eagles snatched them up and bore them far away, but it’s a blur in his mind, fogged by grief and rage and bloodlust. He remembers Fili’s face, though, frozen in that crazed howl. It’s scarred onto his heart, and he thinks, _Thorin cannot know_. 

In sight of the Lonely Mountain with the company bustling around them, Kili feels Fili take his hand – and their fingers fit together like two halves of a whole, perfect, meant for each other. Kili turns to his brother, sees the emptiness in his eyes but also the fear, and he reaches out, settles his palm over the ragged scars in Fili’s skin, doesn’t speak. It’s _i love you_ and _i need you_ and _never leave_ all at once, because Fili’s not okay, Kili knows that, but he will be. They can’t take anything else. 

Fili lets out a shuddering breath and closes his eyes.


End file.
